PREP FOOTBALL: Vista Murrieta beats Murrieta Valley to clinch share of league title

03/04/2013, 2:21pm PST

By By LANDON NEGRI lnegri@californian.com

MURRIETA — Murrieta Valley High's football team gave its
neighborhood bully all it could handle Friday night, while Vista
Murrieta didn't handle its business all that well.

MURRIETA — Murrieta Valley High's football team gave its
neighborhood bully all it could handle Friday night, while Vista
Murrieta didn't handle its business all that well.

All of this added up to a rather awkward game that didn't live
up to what was probably the most meaningful meeting ever between
the intradistrict rivals.

Broncos junior quarterback Nick Stevens ran for 88 yards and
touchdown while throwing for 167 yards and a score as host Vista
Murrieta clinched at least a share of the Southwestern League title
by holding off Murrieta Valley, 23-14, to retain the Unity Cup.

Vista Murrieta, ranked No. 2 in the county and No. 5 in the
state by calhisports.com, led 20-7 at halftime and held off the
Nighthawks when they closed to within six points in the third
quarter. Senior kicker Tyler Rausa booted a 34-yard field goal with
2:29 left in the third to establish a two-possession margin that
the Nighthawks, ranked fifth in the county, couldn't make up.

While giving Murrieta Valley credit for a gritty performance,
Vista Murrieta coach Coley Candaele also thought his team
underachieved — a carryover, he said, from what he described as a
bad week of practice.

"It wasn't real surprising to me that we didn't finish drives
and that we didn't stop (Murrieta Valley)," Candaele said, "because
that's what we did at practice this week, and what you do at
practice is what you do on Friday nights."

Vista Murrieta fumbled four times (losing one) and was penalized
12 times for 106 yards. The Broncos converted just five of 13 third
downs.

After a several-year stretch in which Vista Murrieta vs.
Chaparral had been the most important Southwestern League game of
the year, this season it was the Broncos (4-5, 4-0 league) — whose
five losses were all the result of forfeits — and the Nighthawks
(7-2, 3-1) who essentially played for a league title.

"We were fighting for this game out there tonight," said
Stevens, who completed 12 of 18 passes. "It wasn't like we rolled
over. But we didn't play like it was a big game."

Murrieta Valley sure did, even while playing without starting
defensive linemen Jordan Silva and Michael Payne, as a result of an
automatic suspension for ejections from last week's victory over
Murrieta Mesa.

Despite facing constant pressure, junior quarterback Andrew
Blake led the Nighthawks on two scoring drives, the second capped
by his 9-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Brandon Iacobellis
that allowed the Nighthawks to close within 20-14 with 6:24 left in
the third quarter.

Vista Murrieta answered with Rausa's field goal, and Murrieta
Valley had a chance to get closer at the beginning of the fourth
quarter. The Nighthawks reached the Broncos' 9-yard line before a
fourth-and-1 blitz caught Blake for a 7-yard sack and ended the
threat. Murrieta coach Greg Ireland chose to go for it instead of
kicking a field goal to cut the deficit to one possession.

"If you can't get a 4th-and-1, you don't deserve to win a
championship," Ireland said. "You've got to get that. Championship
teams get those."

Blake spent much of the game on the run, doing well to complete
14 of 31 passes for 161 yards. He was sacked five times.

"Hits on a quarterback over four quarters are kind of our
philosophy," Candaele said. "It's about how many times can you can
get to him during the course of a game."